


Devil's in the Details

by Fatale (femme)



Series: illegal in fifty states [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:58:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So this Manananggal demon, right? Is a real pain in the ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil's in the Details

Devil's in the Details  
Rating: NC17 for some pretty disturbing images. This is VERY graphic, consider yourself warned.  
WC: 5000-ish  
Pairing: Some Dean/OFC, mainly Sam/Dean

This comes after [Illegal in fifty states](http://fatale.livejournal.com/161377.html). It would help to have read the first one, but I don't think you'd have to.

PART 1

  
  


 

So this Manananggal demon, right? Is a real pain in the ass.

They've chased her through three states and as soon as they get close, she moves right the hell on. Doesn't help that the fucker is pretty much indestructible - oh, and can _fly_.

“This demon is supposed to be attractive in her disguised state?“ Sam asks pragmatically.

“Right, you know, except when she’s all sucking up human flesh through her freakishly long tongue.”

Sam shoots Dean a disapproving look, like Dean shouldn't dwell on it, but it's all Dean _can_ dwell on.

“So we ask around and find out if there are any new arrivals. She likes to hit small towns where there won’t be national press over a couple of mysterious miscarriages and a death. Problem for her is, it makes finding new arrivals easier for us.”

Dean risks looking away from that road to give Sam a look that lets him know exactly how big of an idiot Dean thinks he is. “’Cause she seemed so worried about us finding her before, like, when she kicked our asses.”

“We’ll find her,” Sam says, though who he’s trying to convince, Dean’s not sure.

They stop at a gas station to fill the truck up, the fucking fuel hog. Sam had once mentioned buying a more economic car and Dean had barely restrained himself from hitting Sam. Can’t put a price tag on style, Dean said, but thought: This is all I have left.

Not that he’d say that or anything. Instead, he’d turned up the music loud enough to rattle the windows and quiet the thoughts in his head.

He tells Sam he has to take a leak, to wait in the car, and if he changes the station, he’ll fuck him up again, like the time he put ink in Sam’s coffee.

The bathroom is a craphole, literally, and the heat hits Dean like a ten ton weight slamming into his chest. He locks the door behind him anyway and pulls the articles out of his back pocket where he stuffed them when Sam wasn't paying attention. Two more mysterious miscarriages during the night and one dead pregnant woman. Who knows how many others didn’t make the news?

It might not be healthy, obsessing over these dead women and their children, but obsession is something Winchesters do well. Dean leans against the wall and reads the articles over and over again.

When he gets back to the truck, Sam looks kind impassive, which translates to guilty. He immediately begins looking for booby traps. Glue on his seat, dye in his coke.

“Took you long enough,” Sam says.

“Stop being a whiny bitch.” He starts the car and nearly has a heart attack, when the engine roars to life and the music starts playing. “The _fuck_ is this?”

“You should give it a try, it’s good music.”

Dean considers hitting Sam for the third time in less than twenty miles, but the sun’s beating down on them and he doesn’t feel like fighting, yet. The guitars playing aren't even electric. Dean scowls. Bitches are gonna pay - both Sam and the demon.

 

***

 

By some weak-ass trick of fate, the honeymoon suite is cheaper than the regular motel rooms and what the fuck kind of motel has a honeymoon suite? Doesn’t matter, they can share a bed - Dean’s mind shies away from where that thought takes him. They haven’t talked about what happened in Minnesota, but they haven’t _not_ talked about it. Rather, they’ve talked in code.

_“So that-”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Was-”_

_“Whatever, man.”_

_“Okay, okay. Good. So we done talking?”_

_“Yep.”_

_“Yep.”_

Dean nearly dies when he sees the velvet heart-shaped bed. From the look on Sam’s face, he’s not doing much better.

“You’re so sleeping on the floor,” Dean says automatically.

 

***

 

Three hours later sees Sam sleeping on the hideous bed - which they found out the hard way _vibrated_ \- and Dean’s checking out the info on the Manananggal demon they collected earlier.

Sam stirs and open bleary eyes. “Still awake?”

“Nah, I’m sleeping, Sam. While reading a book and the computer.”

Sam rolls his eyes in the semi-darkness. “Find anything interesting?”

“Nothing more than we already knew. Gotta find the bottom half of her body while she’s out sucking people’s insides out and salt and burn the bottom half.”

“We don’t have to burn it, Dean. Just keep her from rejoining so she has to stay in her demon form when the sun rises.”

“I’m not taking any chances, Sam. Besides,” Dean says, turning back to the computer and the books, “burning looks a hell of a lot cooler.”

“You’ve done enough tonight,” Sam tells him sleepily and scoots over a bit, giving Dean room. Dean wants to keep looking, but even he knows he’s better off well rested if he’s planning to kick Manananggal ass in the morning.

He grabs the blanket off the foot of the bed and throws it on the floor. He carefully doesn’t look at Sam when he lies down on it to sleep.

 

***

 

On the way to the library, they pass a park where little kids are yelling and making noise. It takes Sam a full three minutes to realize they’re laughing.

"It's nice here."

"Not bad. Didn't know there were this many trees here."

"Forest service," Sam says absently, then: “Ever wonder what it would be like to play in a park when we were kids?”

“Don’t get maudlin me now, Sammy,” Dean warns.

“I’m not,” Sam insists, though they both know it’s a lie. “Those are nice houses over there.” He points towards the small, quaint looking neighborhood and can’t quite stomp down the flash of painful envy he feels.

“Every library in every small town looks alike,” Dean says, surprisingly philosophical for eight in the morning and purposefully ignoring Sam’s earlier question.

Sam’s lips twitch. “What, with the books and all?”

“Fine, smartass.” Dean pulls up and stops the car. “Just for that, you get to ask the questions."

Sam shrugs. “I’m better at it anyway.”

He follows Dean as he makes his way through the front doors and takes a sharp right towards the information desk.

Catching sight of the librarian, Dean stops. “Or I could ask the questions.”

“But I’m better at it.”

“Wrong, you’re better with the old ladies.” He eyes the way Sam‘s shirt goes taut around his shoulders. “They always want to feed you and stuff.”

Sam opens his mouth to reply, but Dean’s already on the move again.

“Hi,” Dean says, taking in the woman and trying not to be too obvious about it. Sort of.

The librarian - a pretty girl with dark hair and glasses - nervously tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Hi,” she replies awkwardly.

Dean leans over the counter, getting close enough to smell her perfume, a light fruity thing that he can’t place, but it smells nice anyway. He really digs nerdy brunettes.

“So, sweetheart, I was wondering if you could help me.”

“With books?”

Dean winks and he can hear Sam sigh from somewhere behind him. “That, too.”

 

***

 

“Callie said Mrs. Malone lives off Cedar Pine Grove.”

“ _Callie?_ “ Sam asks, for once driving. And listening to good music.

“You don’t like her?”

“ _You_ do?”

“I don’t know, man. She seems nice. Seems like your type, even.”

“She is - that’s why I’m surprised you like her.”

“I don’t always go for a great rack,” Dean protests. It sounds kind of feeble even to his own ears. Of course, Sam should know better. He met Cassie, not that Dean’s planning on bringing her up any time soon. Sam would go all Dr. Phil on his ass.

“Just usually,” Sam supplies.

“Well...yeah. You got a problem with that?” Dean asks, knowing he’s opening up a can of worms he potentially does not want to get into. What if Sam wants to talk about his feelings again?

“No problem,” Sam says, a shade too defensively. “Whoever you date is your own business.”

“Good.”

“Good,” Sam repeats and slams on the brakes, sending Dean crashing into the dashboard.

“Jesus CHRIST!”

“We’re here,” Sam informs Dean mildly.

Dean glares at him while massaging his nose. “You better not have fucked up the breaks, asshole.” Sam doesn’t reply, just walks up to the house and Dean makes a face at his back. _Take that, psychic bitch,_ he thinks.

Sam’s knocking on the door when Dean joins him on the porch. The door opens to reveal a pretty woman, probably early thirties, and dear god, blonde hair. It had to be blonde hair.

“Mrs. Malone?” Sam’s asking politely. “We’re from the state police and we’d like to ask you a few questions, if it’s not too much trouble.”

She glances between the two. “State police? I already told the sheriff and he hold me he’d check into it.”

“He did and now here we are,” Dean says, butting in. He smiles and holds out a hand. “Officer Ian Kilmister.”

She blinks a couple times. “Nice to meet you, Officer. Come on in.”

After being seated on the sofa, she asks them if they’d like anything to drink, and she’s such a nice lady. Dean feels his temples begin to throb.

“Please tell us the story and any information you think is relevant,” Sam instructs gently.

She shudders, but she nods. “It was a week ago. Last Thursday. I, umm, woke up. I don’t know why. I glanced at the clock, it was about 2:30 on the morning. The light from the clock - I saw a string, a oh, a white thread hanging above me. I grabbed it, I thought it hade come loose from our canopy. We have an old fashioned four-poster bed with a lace canopy," she says, looking at Dean. "The thread, it was stronger than it looked, but I had a pair of scissors in my nightstand."

At Dean’s odd look, she stops to explain, “I sew in the evenings while Dan - that’s my husband - reads in bed.”

“Go on,” Sam prods.

“I took out the scissors and cut the thread.”

Her eyes fill with tears and Dean thinks that this is hell on earth. He cannot deal with crying women.

“It’s okay,” Sam says and picks up the box of Kleenexes on the table to offer her one. “Take your time.”

She accepts it gratefully and blows her nose. “When I woke up, the sheets were bloody. I shook Dan awake and he was scared, we both were. We thought - _knew_ \- something had happened to the baby.”

“And something had,” Sam says.

“The doctors said I had a miscarriage, but when I got home, the thread. Oh God. The _thread_.”

Dean leans close. “What about the thread?”

“It was still on the floor where I left it, but it - _it had turned into a severed human tongue_.”

 

 

 

  
  


 

“She eats three babies, then on the fourth or fifth, kills the mother, too. Why?”

“Because she can,” Dean says.

“Do you think this is the first one in the area?”

“Easy way to check.”

“The obituaries wouldn’t report-”

“The hospital records.”

“Dean, not-”

“That‘s right, Sammy,” Dean says with a smugness he doesn’t feel. His stomach’s still on Mrs. Malone’s couch.

“-the bikini inspector badge,” Sam finishes.

 

***

 

“In the past month, there have been only four reported miscarriages. But how many do you think never report them?”

“Plenty. But probably not the ones that wake up without a baby in their stomachs. Just a hunch. Whenever something freaky happens, people run to the nearest doctor to try to explain the unexplainable.”

“You sure know a lot about mothers,” Sam says, half sarcastically, and then stops like he knows he said something stupid and is trying to figure out a way to gloss it over.

“Not really,” Dean finishes and effectively ends the conversation.

 

As soon as they get back to the room, Dean throws his jacket on the bed and begins to strip. “Going to take a shower,” he grunts at Sam, who raises an eyebrow.

“Got somewhere to be?”

“Date with Callie. Going to pick her up at her house. Has a thing for trees, kinda like you.”

If Sam’s eyebrows go any higher, they’re going to fall off his head. “Have fun hugging trees then,” he says.

And it might just be Dean’s imagination, but he’s pretty sure Sam used the pissy voice, which Dean hates because Sam only uses it on _him_.

 

***

 

“Hi,” Dean says when the door opens.

Callie steps aside to let him in. “We seem to say that a lot.”

“Yeah.” He’s not sure why his higher faculties seem to have fled in the face of her knee socks, but something about this chick turns his crank something awful. She’s special.

“I thought maybe we could stay in, watch a movie or something.”

“Don’t like going out much? Or are you a night owl?”

Callie turns to him and Dean likes the way the light half hits her face, her slender build. Reminds him of old pictures of Natalie Wood with her innocent profile. She’s tall for a woman, probably near six feet, but that suits him fine. More to love, he thinks lewdly, then firmly stops the train wreck of a thought.

“I’m a night owl. I don’t sleep much.”

“Yeah, you remind me of my brother. He doesn’t sleep much, either.”

“Really? Sounds like we’d get along. Here,” she says, handing him a glass. “I opened some wine just before you got here.”

“My kind of girl. What movies did you get?”

She laughs. “You seem like the action type.”

"You know it," he says and steps toward her. Instead of backing off like he expected, she steps forward and presses her body against his. Well now.

It takes him ten minutes to decide this babe is made of awesome.

 

 

  
  


 

Sam can't believe it, but he's bored. He can't sleep and Dean's been gone for _hours_. He refuses to feel any kind of jealousy, because that would be fucked up. More fucked up than chasing demons across the country, even.

He can hear the TV blaring from two rooms down, some kind of crappy talk show and he wishes his own TV got something other than the Jerry Springer Show because even he's not that desperate yet.

The quiet is slowly driving him mad.

Dean's the kind of guy that pisses him off: always making noise, doing shit to fill the empty space up. At one time Sam thought it was annoying. Now he realizes how much he kind of misses it. How did he fill up the years away from Dean?

Jesus, Sam thinks, Dean was right. He really is growing breasts.

Sam sighs and turns on the laptop. Might as well get some work done while Dean's off getting some action and firmly reminding Sam where the boundaries are between them. It's not like what happened in Minnesota doesn't make Sam _think_ , it just doesn't make him think anything bad.

There's a lot of shit that Sam doesn't know and Dean's always the first the point that out, but Sam knows that whatever happened in Minnesota might've changed how they deal with each other, but it didn't change _them_. They are what they are and Sam's kind of learned to accept that, maybe.

He scrolls through the headline archive of the local newspapers for other places the demon hit up, in hopes that he'll find something they missed before, but nothing jumps out at him.

After another hour, he's almost ready to call it a night when something catches his eye: Local Young Woman Goes Missing.

Missing people is always a good sign. For him and Dean, not the missing people.

He clicks on the link to pull up the whole article. A picture appears slowly, filling up the screen and Sam nearly falls out of his chair.

He goes to another archive for Atkins, Iowa and scans quickly through the headlines, looking for any missing people. There. Another picture: She disappeared around the same time the women and babies are killed. Right after, actually. No one suspects anything, because who would ever suspect such a sweet-looking girl?

Fuck.

 _Dean_.

 

***

 

Dean wakes up to static on TV and the half-light casts long shadows over the room. The movie's been off for some time (VHS, how much does he dig this girl?) and apparently, they both fell asleep.

"Wake up, sleeping beauty," Dean says and brushes long hair off her cheek to lean down and kiss her.

"Mmm," she murmmers, half-asleep still. She blinks her long lashed, dark eyes lazily and yawns.

"Helluva date, both of us falling asleep," Dean jokes. "If I were less manly, this would hurt my pride."

She smiles and her eyes gleam in the fuzzy light of the TV. "Trust me, it's not you, it's me."

Dean opens his mouth to say something that he knows will probably get him slapped in the face when his phone rings in his back pocket. He leans over and tugs it out, glances down to where _Sam - Sam - Sam_ blinks up at him.

"'Scuse me. Got to take this," he says, gets up from the couch and takes a few steps away. "What do you want?" he whispers furiously into the phone. "I just woke up with a beautiful girl. Bitch, this had better be good."

Sam’s tone stops Dean's ire cold. “Dean, _get out of there._ ”

“What?” Dean asks uncertainly.

“Get out of there _now_. It’s her."

Dean closes his phone with a decisive snap. “My brother needs some help,” he says to Callie, surprised when he realizes how silently she moved up behind him. “I need to get back to him.”

Callie tucks her hair behind her ear in a way that he once thought was endearing, but now is fraught with all kinds of meanings, foremost being, _I eat people_. “You have to leave immediately?”

“Afraid so, darlin'."

She shrugs and moves closer. “I don’t know, I might not be around much longer.”

Dean licks his lips and inches his hand towards the pistol tucked into the waistband of his jeans. “Where else would you be?”

“The real question is,“ she says in her quiet little girl voice, “where will _you_ be?”

She’s close now, close enough to reach out and grab him and he _moves_ , grabs his gun and whips it forward. But it’s not fast enough and the last thing he sees is her wide, dark, bloodshot eyes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PART 2

  
  


 

Dean, Sam decides, is an idiot. Oh, god. He watches the minutes tick by. When five pass, he feels like his stomach is trying to crawl up into his throat. After ten, his hands are shaking. At fifteen, he’s up and throwing whatever he can into his pockets: holy water, the garlic they picked up earlier, crosses, and salt, lots of salt.

He opens his phone to call information, then realizes 1) She’s new in town and 2) He doesn’t even know her last name. Jesus, he’s sloppy without Dean here.

Stop. Rewind. What did Dean say about Callie?

Tree hugging?

She’d have to live close enough for Dean to meet her at eight and only leave only fifteen minutes before. _Trees._

The woods.

 

***

 

Dean wakes up in the dark. At first, he thinks he's in a basement of some sort. As his eyes adjust, he realizes that he‘s in a kitchen and every fucking shutter in the house is drawn closed.

And he’s tied to a chair in the kitchen, of course. When Sam finds him, he’s going to die laughing, the bastard.

“Have a good nap? You were out for a long time.” Callie asks from behind him and Dean has to crane his neck to get a look at her. When he does, he nearly recoils and only his injured pride keeps him in place. Taken out by a girl. Of course, right now, she hardly qualifies as a girl.

Oh hell, he thinks, I nearly macked with _that_.

She begins undressing while talking companionably, red eyes trained on him. “The Winchesters, huh? Good old American boys. _Oh,_ \- and this is priceless - you hunt demons. How quaint.”

Naked, she walks across the room and picks up the biggest, meanest butcher knife Dean's ever seen in his life from the kitchen table. “This is my least favourite part,” she confides.

Dean eyes the knife. “I gotta say I’m not too fond of it either.”

"Don’t worry, it’s not for you," she says and thrusts the knife into her own gut with a visceral scream that leaves Dean’s ears ringing. He knows she lives on the outskirts of town, but this shit is ungodly. How the hell has no one fucking heard this every night?

“They hear and see what they want to, kind of like you, Dean,” she says, voice strained. Flecks of blood dot her lips and a long, serpent-like tongue flickers out to lap them up.

“Everyone’s a psychic,” Dean mutters.

She screams again as she cuts across her soft belly and hips with quick, savage movements and he catches brief flashes of silver as she hacks away at her flesh and bones.

Her skin begins twitching as if hundreds of tiny bugs are crawling under it, up and over her shoulders and settle under the blistering skin of her back. The skin tears with a sickening _rip_ and Dean doesn’t take any satisfaction in this. It’s damn near impossible to watch, but he can’t look away. He liked this girl.

Huge bat wings sprout from her back and they flap. Once. Twice. Rancid air hits him in the face as her body pulls apart with a final snap of tendons and bone. Her intestines dangle in midair.

Dean’s seen a lot of fucked up shit in his life, but this takes the cake.

She looks at him again with blood-red eyes, tucks a strand of her dark hair behind her ear in an achingly familiar gesture and parts her lips, revealing two rows of long, pointed teeth.

“Your brother's here." She smiles viciously. "I waited for him."

 

***

She’s still holding the knife when she approaches. "The sun’s coming up soon and I need to feed as much as possble. You two have made it hard for me."

"Can't say I'm too sorry for that."

"It ends tonight."

Try as he might, Dean doesn't have a smartassy comeback for that. This whole thing was a set-up.

Her tongue darts out, long and dangerous. Jesus, she’s going to slurp him up like a Big Gulp.

She’s gone through his pockets because both his knives and his gun are gone. He tests the ropes again, but they’re not giving. He can get through anything with enough time, but time is what he doesn't have, because that nasty-ass tongue is getting too close for comfort.

“Don’t worry,” she says and she’s so close, she’s practically on his lap. “It won’t hurt at all.”

“Except the dying part,” Dean manages.

She runs her long, slender fingers through his hair and down his neck. He remembers those same fingers running down a library phone book for the address he needed. He liked them a lot more then, he thinks.

Her lips curl into a wide, hellish smile. “It’ll tingle at first, then you won’t feel a thing.” Her tongue slithers out of her mouth like something alive, writhing on its own command.

“This sucks,” Dean says and he fervently wishes he could be in a situation where that statement wouldn’t be ironic.

He closes his eyes when the kitchen door busts in, sending shards of wood and dust flying. Sam steps through with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands, looking like some kind of action figure with dumbass hair, and Dean is kind of grateful that he’s not going to get all slurped up but also pissed because there’s a good chance they’ll both die tonight.

“Feel this, bitch,” Sam says, raising his shotgun and hitting her square in the chest.

The shot only stuns her. Given that she can saw through her own body, Dean figures it won’t keep her down for long.

“What’d you use?” Deans asks, furiously working his ropes off.

“12 gauge blessed silver shots.”

“Does that work on this kind of demon?”

“Apparently so.” Sam’s fumbling in his pockets, pulling out all kinds of crap that isn’t the one thing they need.

The Manananggal demon shudders and her head rises, staring at them like they’re her next super value meal.

“Hurry up, Sam!”

“Got it,” Sam says, holding up the packet of salt triumphantly.

“Go! Salt the bottom part of her body so she can’t rejoin the two.”

Sam scrambles out of the room, slipping on the bloody floor twice and getting up again. Dean takes up Sam’s gun and shoots the demon twice before he realizes he’s just pissing her off more.

She hisses and springs forward. Dean tries to take another shot, but she’s fucking fast, and knocks it out of his hands. She snarls in his face so close that he gets an eyeful of fangs, while her hot, fetid breath bears down on him. She knocks him aside like he’s a ragdoll and tears after Sam.

She catches Sam first in the hallway; the strong grip of her fingers tear through his shirt and skin and muscle, throwing him into the wall. He feels his nose break and his world momentarily goes white.

“Fuck,” he yells, blood running down his chin, and yanks a sharp gold cross out of his pocket.

“Crosses won't stop me,” she snarls.

“We’ll see about that,” Sam says and jams the sharp end of it into the soft flesh of her left breast.

She screams, wings pounding furiously against the walls. _whoosh - whoosh - whoosh_ Her hand blindly reaches forward, searching for any purchase and grabs a fistful of his hair. He gasps in pain as she yanks.

Dean shoots her from behind and Sam's ears nearly _explode_ with her angry shriek.

She’s falling back, fists still clutching handfuls of hair. He grits his teeth, mentally gearing himself, and rips free.

Errant strands of hair cling to his face and warm blood trickles down his neck. He stumbles forward, the sound of Dean and the Manananggal fighting behind him, distant in his ears. He raises the salt with bloodied, shaking hands and pours it on her lower body.

Around him, the house is suddenly silent.

Sam's afraid to turn around.

Then: “You stupid sons of bitches. Did you really think that would stop me?”

“Told you, Sammy,” Dean half-whispers, sounding dead already. “Should’ve burned it.”

“You can’t rejoin your body,” Sam says disbelievingly, turning to face her. “You’re dead anyway.”

“I don’t need to in order to kill both of you,” she tells them both, and looks back at Dean.

Dean raises the shotgun and she laughs, fucking _laughs_.

“Don’t you idiots _get_ it? That won’t work on me.”

"Not aiming for you," Dean says and smiles. She stops laughing.

Dean shifts his weight to his left foot, aims and fires. The shot rips through the shutters behind her. Outside, the sun is rising and the light fills the room.

"Mornin', sweetheart."

 

***

 

Sam’s lying on the floor, his head is pounding, his nose throbs, his busted knee is nearly blinding him with pain, and his shoulder is going to need more stitches than he cares to think about.

He wants to say something profound, he wants to laugh hysterically, he wants to sleep. All he can manage is to stare blankly at the pile of ashes that used to be the Manananggal demon.

He's startled by Dean’s laughter and then, “Dude, you have a _bald spot._ You are officially never getting laid again.”

 

 

  
  


 

The first few toupees are mildly funny, because yes, he looks stupid. He had to get most of his hair cut and he can’t help it, he feels naked without it. Not that he’d ever tell Dean that.

Admitting any insecurity to him is just asking to wake up with a spoon in your mouth.

“You have lousy taste in girlfriends,” Sam says when he wakes up with a toupee glued to his head. He’s feeling bitchy and spiteful and wants to give Dean a taste of his own medicine, but Dean just shrugs it off and keeps grinning like an idiot.

“Does that include you?” Dean asks and Sam freezes, just like that. A casual mention of any relationship of Dean’s is rare enough, but for Dean to mention _them_ in such a casual way makes Sam wonder if Dean needed more than just a few stitches to the head. What if something got loose? What if Dean starts watching _Ellen_ in the afternoons?

The best way to handle this, Sam reasons, is the pretend it’s okay. Kind of like with a bear. Before it eats you.

“Maybe,” Sam answers and holds his breath.

“Yeah.”

Dean goes back to cleaning his gun, while Sam watches him silently. I nearly lost you, he thinks and makes a silent vow to keep Dean as close and as safe for as long as he can.

One day (if he can bear the scorn Dean's likely to heap on him) he'll start a journal for all the things he thinks but doesn't say.

But for now, the few quiet moments they have, the tiny revelations, the _realness_ of it all, it's enough.

Suddenly, Sam laughs. “I saved your ass back there, didn’t I?”

Dean looks up. “Hey, I almost had her.”

“Yeah, I could tell by the way you were whimpering.”

“Whatever, dude. I do _not_ whimper,” Dean protests. “I was...concentrating.”

“Concentrating on getting eaten?" Sam says with a smirk. "Yeah, I saw that. Who’s the damsel in distress now, asshole?”

 

 

 

THE END.

 

  
  


 

\- [Full story notes on the mythology and dodgy geography can be found here.](http://fatale.livejournal.com/162183.html)  
\- There's a kind of story after this, [Living in the green](http://fatale.livejournal.com/162717.html).


End file.
